


Fortuitous

by shopfront



Category: Fleabag (TV)
Genre: Awkwardness, F/F, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Post-Canon, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-12 09:04:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19225984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: Fleabag still isn't sure if she's really that different these days. She thinks she is. Her life certainly feels like it's at least a little bit changed in all the important ways. But perhaps there's still something missing....





	Fortuitous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asuralucier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/gifts).



The first thing out of Belinda’s mouth after bursting into the cafe is, “do you have a phone? Mine's dead and I’m running really bloody late.”

She’s tempted to say no. Or maybe point to the closed sign on the door, just to watch Belinda’s mouth purse into that amused yet remote expression that makes her want to press her legs together and sigh. But she does have a phone, or at least the cafe definitely has a phone. If she digs in her bag for her mobile to offer to Belinda instead there’s probably an even chance that she’s dropped it in a puddle somewhere without realising, and then Belinda will be giving her a far less interesting look.

All of these thoughts run into and then back out of her head in a mere moment, but still she hesitates.

“Is this… _this_ catching? I haven’t forgotten an umbrella since my last hot flush, I’m normally far more put together than this,” Belinda says, sounding terribly done with life while unbuttoning and gesturing down.

The drenched suit pants cling attractively to Belinda’s legs. She smiles slowly as she leans forward to rest on her elbows on the cafe counter so she can get a better look, and Belinda’s eyes dip briefly to follow the movement. Towards her tits if she’s not mistaken, and she has to bite her lip to try and stop a chuckle. They’ve come a long way since rejected kisses in bars. Sadly, biting her lip brings Belinda’s gaze back up to her mouth and then onwards and upwards. Despite now looking exasperated in a slightly different way - possibly with herself for being caught looking, again - Belinda’s gaze stops on her eyes and fixes there as if refusing to admit that anything exists below her nose.

The fact that Belinda is so determined not to let on that she’s apparently attractive after all is something. Almost worth losing the opportunity to flirt more with her body, given Belinda has yet to give in and allow her to attempt another kiss... and wasn’t that just a crying shame.

“I remember,” is all she says in reply, casual and unaffected. Though she does drop her voice a little lower, a little more husky than usual, before she scoops up the cafe phone and holds it out. “Help yourself.”

It takes Belinda two tries to take the phone from her hand while refusing to look down anywhere near it, near her body. But neither of them say a word about it, or look away from each other, once Belinda finally captures the clunky old cordless handset and begins to dial.

Belinda requests a cab after a beat of listening to it ring, still not looking away from her face. This time when she licks her lips, Belinda’s eyes drop down and linger.

“There’s something about this neighbourhood. Brings out the worst in all of us,” she says once Belinda has hung up.

Belinda just sighs. “Yes, it does rather seem to do that. I wish someone had mentioned it before I moved here.”

She laughs. “If I also remember correctly, you prefer martinis and quiet nights in. So what are you up to, that got you caught out so late in all of this?” 

She gestures to the front of the cafe as she asks the question, to where water is streaming down the windows. Belinda just mirrors her smirk and waves a hand as if to bat the question away.

But Belinda’s expression does become more calculating the longer they linger. So now it’s her turn to sigh in what’s become a semi-regular dance between them. Time to look away and find other things to occupy herself with. She putters about the cafe under Belinda’s watchful gaze, nudging the last of the tables and chairs neatly together as she puts away the dried dishes and half-heartedly rummages in the fridge.

“If you’d like something warm to drink to take the edge off all that water, I could-,” she starts to offer with her head still buried in the fridge, but the sound of a horn cuts her off. “Ah. Is that you? Never mind, then.”

She’s surprised when she emerges to find Belinda looks genuinely regretful for once, instead of blasé and amused like usual. The drenched coat has also been stripped off while she wasn’t watching, and she fervently wishes that had gone differently. Now she can see exactly how Belinda’s delicate blouse is clinging to her wet skin, only she’s gone and missed long minutes worth of staring. Idiot.

“Perhaps another time,” Belinda says, already almost at the doorway before she can protest.

“You know when we open,” is all she says, and suddenly she hates the sound of own voice. All trembling and hopeful, like that night at the bar and all the things she keeps telling Belinda she’s left behind her now.

Belinda’s already out in the rain again before she’s finished speaking. She clenches her fist behind the counter, bangs it into the wood below where anyone but her can see - harder than she probably should, just feel the sharp smack of pain and try to ground herself with it. She thinks she sees a flash of contemplative eyes looking back at her before Belinda’s gone, really gone now, into the cab and off again down the road. Maybe to her fancy new home around the corner, or maybe off to wherever she was meant to be tonight that wasn’t looking for a convenient escape from the rain.

Maybe it doesn’t matter, anyway. Because she’s pretty sure she’s not invited wherever Belinda’s going, and she’s a responsible adult with a new degree to study for and a cafe manager to hire and no more time for pining. So that’ll just have to be okay.

*

She’s still sternly scolding herself to forget about it on the way to work the next morning. Up at the arse-crack of dawn and nothing to show for it but regret and a headache, much like every other morning of her life until recently. It’s odd to feel like she’s back there, even in her head. She stops at the corner to try and shake it off before the cafe is in sight and the feeling gets a chance to linger, and she sighs so heavily that she startles someone heading for the bus stop.

“Sorry,” she says awkwardly and ducks her head to rummage in her bag, hopes it’s nobody she knows. Still no mobile. Maybe it had been prophetic, worrying that she might have lost it in a puddle. But she does at least manage to pull out her heavy course textbook with a triumphant sound. Immediately she startles two more commuters as she knocks one of them in the arm with her triumphant wave of the book though, and it makes her want to sink quietly back into the hedge until she’s disappeared.

But she’s got something to do other than just open the cafe, now. Anything other than go round and round in her head about Belinda, the same way she has every morning since Belinda first walked through her door only to stop still and stare.

It’s time she remembered that she’s onto bigger and better things these days. Because she is. Really.

At least until she reaches her cafe and hears someone clear their throat.

“Oh,” is all she says as she looks up, book in one hand and keys in the other. “Do you need a coffee?”

“Actually, I rather need you,” Belinda replies. Then stops and blinks, and it’s giving her an eerie sense of deja vu to see someone else look like they’re both confused and desperately trying to force time to turn back on itself. That’s meant to be her look. “Ah, that is, I meant to say-”

“Come in for a cuppa?” she tries again. The relief on Belinda’s face is so sudden and so obvious that her own stomach aches with sympathy, even though she’s still mostly busy being surprised and hasn’t had a chance to become nervous herself yet. But she gets the door swinging open first try, thank God, so she waves Belinda in and drops her textbook on the nearest table before heading for the little tea and coffee nook.

“I didn’t take you for a scientist,” Belinda says behind her. The urge to put her face in her hands is so strong that she nearly drops the milk.

“Just trying it out. Terrible class timetables this time round, unfortunately. No good choices,” is all she says, and it sounds good to her own ears. Brisk. No fuss. Not a big deal.

“University? Good for you,” is what Belinda says in reply, and fuck, it’s the right thing to say. But it’s also the exact wrong thing, because Belinda somehow turns her into a blithering idiot seemingly at complete random. She can feel her face get warm and she’s probably blushing, and it's really, really not how she wants this conversation to go. If she actually, you know, had expected them to be having another conversation so soon. Belinda had seemed to be avoiding early mornings at the cafe since that first startled encounter, like it was too much seeing her before the rest of the world woke up, too.

“You’re up early,” she says instead as she drops teabags into two mugs and fusses with the kettle.

Eventually there’s no other excuse for keeping her back to Belinda, so she turns and settles herself to lean with her hip against the counter. Immediately she wants to put her head in hands again, realising what she’s only a moment ago. They'd been very deliberately not talking about that first morning. She was fairly sure they weren't, anyway. But she can pretend to be cool and unaffected. Somewhere deep inside she thinks she remembers how to do that. Maybe.

“At least, I assume this is early for you. I suppose I only have the one early coffee visit to go on at this point.”

Oh God, it just isn't going to stop, is it? The words are just going to keep tumbling out of her like she’s drunk or actually attempting to die of self-induced embarrassment. She had made Belinda the requested coffee, the only coffee Belinda had ever asked for actually, while they had stared at each other and her regulars had stared at both of them. One visit that hadn’t been repeated, unless it was late enough in the morning for Belinda to apparently want food and tea instead.

“I was surprised,” Belinda says.

There’s a coat and handbag sitting by her textbook now, and as she looks over towards them she notices that she’s also failed to flip over the open sign. Still closed then. Just them. No awkward audiences this time, though she’s not entirely sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“I know I shouldn’t have been, but you never used my card to call and, well. I was,” Belinda continues. She falters a little in the middle but takes a deep breath and soldiers on. “There it is. You surprised me.”

“I noticed.”

Belinda cracks and laughs. It’s not the flirty little laughs or even the deprecating little laughs that they’ve both been exchanging between the first visit and now. It’s a real, hearty laugh, and it’s simultaneously so wry and relieved that it makes her want to chuckle as well. Only, Belinda’s also moving now, weaving between the tables towards her.

No. Wait. Belinda’s stopping in front of her, and then Belinda smiles and raises a hand to her cheek. Idly she thinks that the tea has probably finished steeping by now, but somehow she can’t make her feet move.

“I don’t have many regrets,” Belinda says. "They're stupid things, not usually worth the bother."

Each word is slow, with entire worlds worth of silence lingering in-between like Belinda’s painstakingly picking them out one by one. Only, not really, that’s ridiculous. She can practically hear everyone she knows in her head telling her not to exaggerate so much. How can there be worlds-

“But I do rather regret leaving you alone in the bar that night.”

She blinks once, then twice, before she leans in. And wonder of all wonders, this time Belinda lets her.

The surprise of that is enough to make her groan when they’ve barely even touched. Before Belinda can come to her senses and maybe, possibly, push her away again, she buries her hands in that hair. That blasted sensible hair that’s been haunting her. Then she lets her hands slide down, palms pressing in to feel the silk of Belinda’s blouse and every contour of her neck and shoulders. She tastes the coffee on that sharp, intelligent tongue.

“You didn’t even need a morning coffee,” she says as she pulls back, licking her lips.

Belinda shakes her head, and she can feel it it reverberate through her because they’re pressed closely together. “Not quite. I haven’t slept.”

“That doesn’t sound a very quiet or relaxing evening,” she replies. There’s a feeling expanding beneath her ribs that she can’t quite identify, and it just gets bigger when Belinda smiles and leans in again.

“No. But this street does strange things to people, or so I’m told,” Belinda says against her mouth, and they both laugh into the next kiss. She lets Belinda part her lips and lick her way into her very soul - if she even has one, she’s still not too sure about that - and it’s everything their first kiss wasn’t. Full of fire, and hunger, and curiosity.

Belinda sighs as they part, and she hears herself echo it in stereo. Only it’s a happy sound this time, from both of them, and she can’t stop the smile feels like it’s splitting her face in two.

“You know, I still don’t know your name.” Belinda presses the words into her lips, into her cheekbones, and the edge of her jaw, and she just sighs again. She should probably open the cafe, or take Belinda home, or-

Or just bloody enjoy it and see where it leads.

“It’s not important. Just keep kissing me,” she says with another laugh. And luckily, Belinda does exactly that.


End file.
